


Sapphire seas of grass with dark islands of grass bearing great plumy trees which are grass again." a hundred rippling oceans, each ripple a gleam of scarlet or amber, emerald or turquoise. a precocious child grew into a distinctly tedious adult.īut i will try to remember that child! because the first half or so of this book was awesome. it was replaced by confusing xenobiology, a didactic chemistry lecture, a ham-handed coincidence (oops, that extremely important and provocative letter just dropped out of that villain's pocket!), increasingly two-dimensional characters, an extremely lame vision of God, creepy alien sex (and not the good kind), the idea that a rebellious daughter is better off with her mind wiped clean, and repetitious obsessiveness with original sin & what makes a good wife & who is in love with who now and why and why won't they. that winsome feeling of terror just on the horizon, that sweet sense of horror lurking just around the corner, all the subtlety and strange wonder. i was filled with pleasure at the sight of her.Īlas, the child grew up. Tepper as the child i've never had but always wanted. how enchanting! wonderful chills ensued from this delightful story. This story was full of twisted emotions, strained familial relations, ambiguous motivations, intriguing mysteries, and a constant yet subtle sense of increasing dread. such brilliantly sinister tableaux! and those foxhunts! my gosh, those bizarre fauna! the various moments portraying them gazing silently and malevolently at characters, up close and even more eerily in the distant grasses.

the unsettling sound of beasts stamping out a threatening dance from not-so-distant caverns. an atrocious plague spreading like wildfire from planet to planet. a feeling of claustrophobia - but, uniquely, a claustrophobia based on an entire planet, one filled with huge living spaces and wide, windy open ranges. a foxhunt that is not a foxhunt, but something else entirely - something inexplicable, something horrible. a perfect introduction to the planet's aristocrats, well-rendered through the eyes of an uncomfortable young lady on her first foxhunt. an expertly portrayed and atypical heroine who felt alive and real (and who rather reminded me of Deborah Kerr in her various classy roles).

a backdrop based around a particularly esoteric and semi-totalitarian theocracy. a fascinating planet full of strange multi-colored grass, bizarre fauna, the ruins of an alien civilization. this story seemed to know exactly what i was longing for: Horror in Space! and so she provided it to me. Once upon a time there was a delightful young story named Grass by Sheri S.
